* John Frederick Herring Snr.

signed and dated J.F. Herring 1827 lower right

The Doncaster Cup was founded in 1766 and is the oldest genuinely continuous horse race in Britain.  For many years, the cup was donated by the Stewards of Doncaster Racecourse and the trophy was the grandest object offered as a racing prize up until Victorian times, when it was matched in splendour by the cups offered at Ascot and Goodwood.

In 1825 at Doncaster the entrants raced for a Gold Cup which was given by the Stewards, The Marquess of Londonderry and Sir J.V.B. Johnstone, Bt.  It was valued in the Racing Calendar at 350 guineas.  It was a stayers’ race run over two miles and five furlongs.  The race was won by Mr. Whittaker’s Lottery, ridden by Nelson.  Lottery was a brown horse foaled in 1820 by Tramp out of Mandane.  Lottery was a half-brother to two English Classic Winners, Manuella (1812 Oaks) and Altisdora (1813 St. Leger). 

Lottery defeated Mr. Craven’s Longwaist, Mr. Burnley’s Falcon and Mr. Farquharson’s Figaro.  The also-rans comprised Lord Sligo’s Starch, Mr. Lambton’s Cedric, the Duke of Leeds’s Crowcatcher, Lord Exeter’s Zealot and Mr. Duncombe’s bay filly by St. Helena.  In his career Lottery, who was originally named Tinker, won Mr. Whittaker a second Gold Cup, through a victory at Preston.

John Frederick Herring Snr. was born in Surrey, and in 1813, at the age of 18, he eloped with Anne Harris to Doncaster in South Yorkshire.  He gained employment as a coach driver on the run to London and Halifax, while painting in his spare time.  During these seven years as a coachman, Herring had a unique view of the English countryside and was able to study the coach horses as well as other breeds that he would have encountered in his travels.  This experience enabled Herring to become the most successful painter of sporting subjects in the Victorian age.

In 1818, Herring exhibited his first work at the Royal Academy and, by 1820, he had become a professional artist.  His first regular employment was provided by the Doncaster Gazette for whom he had been painting designs for engraved portraits of prominent collectors such as Charles Spencer-Stanhope and Frank Hawkesworth who commissioned portraits of their racehorses at Doncaster, Epsom and Newmarket.  By 1830, Herring had moved to Newmarket to be closer to his patrons.  By 1833 the artist had moved to Camberwell where he ran into some financial difficulties.  These problems were solved with the assistance of W.T. Copeland who commissioned Herring to produce designs of foxhunting scenes to be used on Copeland Spode porcelain.  These designs proved to be very successful, and by the 1850s he was patronized by Queen Victoria, Ferdinand, Duc d’Orleans and the Duchess of Kent.  Herring died at his elegant country house at Meopham in Kent.

The present picture is one of Herring’s finest depictions of Doncaster racecourse, and this composition was repeated several times by the artist (both of the other versions were sold in London in 1984), but with differences to the figures in the background.

See illustration on previous page.